Our God and Father has graced us in the Beloved (Eph. 1:6); He put us in Christ, His Beloved Son, and He made us the object of His grace by our being in His beloved Son. Hallelujah!
The matter of grace is very deep and profound, much deeper than just the favour of God or the things that God does for us.
God has an economy, an arrangement to carry out what is in His heart; His desire is to work Himself into us, the believers in Christ, and make us His corporate expression on earth.
The economy of God is entirely a matter of grace; we are in the age of grace today, and grace is nothing else but the enjoyment of God as our everything.
When we speak of grace we don’t speak merely of some benefit that we receive from God, a better job, a child, a new house, or a new car; all these are things that He may give us or do for us but are not His grace.
God’s grace is Christ Himself, His embodiment, reaching us as the Spirit to be our enjoyment, our life, our life supply, and our everything.
In other words, grace is nothing but the Triune God dispensing Himself into us to be our everything.
And this grace came when Jesus came, and the Spirit is the Spirit of grace; grace was not there in the Old Testament, but praise the Lord, in the New Testament grace came!
Grace came through Jesus Christ, and today we can receive grace because God went through a process of incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension, to become grace to us!
Now, grace is with our spirit, for the Lord Jesus Himself is with our spirit. Actually, the whole Bible ends with, The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints (Rev. 22:21).
The entire Bible, the entire divine revelation in God’s word, ends with grace; this is very significant.
We need to see the tremendous significance of God’s grace as revealed in the New Testament, and we need to be those who daily enjoy the portion of grace from the Lord that we need for that day.
His grace is sufficient, and without His grace, we can do nothing.
Grace is so significant that we may even say that grace is the highest truth in God’s New Testament economy, and grace is the highest revelation in God’s economy.
Through grace, we have been saved, by faith, and grace is continually being given to us by God. God graced us in His beloved, in Christ; He put us in Christ, and in Him, we are graced. Hallelujah!
Our God and Father has Graced us in the Beloved: in Christ, we are the Object of His grace!
Eph. 1:6b says that our God and Father has graced us in the Beloved; we may have read this verse quite often and may think we understand this, but this verse is not only sweet but also full of very profound meanings.
God graced us; He didn’t just give us grace but He graced us. The word “grace” here is in a verb form; grace is a noun, but Paul uses it here as a verb.
God didn’t just give us grace but He graced us.
The feelings in this verse are rich, for God put us in Christ, and in Christ, we are graced by Him.
For God to grace us means that He has put us into the position of grace so that we may be the object of His grace and favour; now we are qualified to enjoy all that God is to us.
It is not our efforts, zeal, or improvement that has qualified us to receive God’s grace; rather, it is God who put us in Christ, His Beloved, and God graced us in the Beloved. We have been placed into a position of grace.
In order for someone to receive a gift that we want to give him, he has to be in the right position; if that person is far away in a different country, we can’t give him the gift, but if he’s right in front of us, in our home, he can receive the gift.
We were once far off, but in Christ, we have been brought near; even more, God put us in Christ, His Beloved, and in Christ, we have been graced.
Because we have been put in Christ, we have become the object of God’s grace and favour so that we can enjoy all that God is to us.
Now God is Christ’s Father and also our Father; He is His God and our God, for Christ is God’s beloved and we are in Christ.
God sees us in Christ, and Christ is His beloved; therefore, we share Christ’s part and place, and we know God’s love and favor, even the shining of His face.
It is not in the natural man that God has set His favor on us, but in the Beloved.
We are a group of beloved ones, for God put us in the Beloved. Because we are in the position of grace and are the object of grace, God is pleased with us; our God and Father graced us in the Beloved.
We should remember this with much feeling at the Lord’s table when we come to break the bread.
After we enjoy and remember the Lord, we come to worship the Father; there is truly a sweet sense within us that, by enjoying Christ’s redemptive work for us, we are brought home, we’re brought back to the Father, and we are in God’s beloved, in whom God delights.
And now we follow Him and abide in Him, enjoying the Father’s delight with Him in His possession.
When the Father sees that we are brought back to the Father’s house by His beloved Son and in His beloved Son, His delight is unspeakable.
It is like a big family being reunited after a long time; the children didn’t see their parents for a long time, and the mother is very happy, preparing many delicious dishes for the children to enjoy.
On one hand, the children enjoy all the dishes that the mother prepared; on the other hand, though the mother labours so much to prepare all things, she enjoys the children enjoying the food, for they are her beloved.
Our God is so happy to have us in the Beloved, for He graced us in the Beloved; we were a group of sinners, but now we are brought back to Him.
God’s delight is in us, we are happy in Him, and eventually, there’s mutual enjoyment – we enjoy Him and He enjoys us.
As we come to the breaking of the bread at the Lord’s table, especially as we proceed to remember the Father, we have the feeling that we are in the Beloved – we’re in the same position as His Beloved Son, and in Him, we have become beloved of God, for God delights in Him, so He delights in us.
We are therefore filled with joy unspeakable, for we enjoy Him and He enjoys us, and we are graced in the Beloved.
Praise You, Father, for putting us in Christ, Your Beloved. Hallelujah, our God and Father has graced us in the beloved, for in Christ we have become the object of His grace! Thank You for not only bringing us back to Yourself, in Your home but also putting us in Christ, the beloved Son of God, so that we may receive grace. Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are put into the position of grace so that we may be the object of God’s grace and favour! Amen, now God is pleased with us and we have a mutual enjoyment – God enjoys us and we enjoy God. We love You, Father God, and we praise You. You delight in us and we are happy in You. We enjoy You and You enjoy us. What a grace! Oh, how sweet!
We are Graced in the Beloved to the Praise of the Glory of His Grace and we Enjoy the Riches of His Grace!
God has done everything for us: we simply need to believe and receive. He sent Christ to redeem us by dying for us, and He qualified all those who believe into Christ to be partakers of His grace.
When we believe into Christ as a reaction to His heavenly attraction through the gospel, we became sons of God and were put by God in Christ, His beloved Son.
According to Matt. 3:17 and 17:5, twice the Father testified from the heavens that Christ is His beloved Son, and all should hear Him.
After He was baptized by John the Baptist, at the beginning of His ministry on earth, the Father spoke from the open heavens that this One, Christ is His Beloved Son.
Later, on the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father testified again that Jesus Christ is the Beloved, and all should hear Him.
In the Beloved we have been graced – we were made the object of God’s favour and pleasure.
The issue of predestination unto sonship mentioned in Eph. 1:5 is that we are graced in the Beloved, and this is to the praise of the glory of His grace.
God’s predestinating us unto sonship is for the praise of His expression in His grace. Glory is God expressed, while grace is God enjoyed.
When we enjoy God – because He graced us in the Beloved – we grow in Him and advance to the point that we become to the praise of the glory of His grace.
God’s grace, which is God Himself as our enjoyment, expresses Him; God is expressed in His grace, and as we enjoy Him, we express Him.
As we receive grace and enjoy God, we have a sense of glory, for our enjoyment of God leads us and issues in the expression of God. Hallelujah!
On the one hand, because our God and Father graced us in the Beloved, we are in the right position to be the object of His grace.
On the other hand, as we enjoy Him and He enjoys us, we become part of His corporate expression in glory. Praise the Lord! We are in the Beloved, and the Father is full of delight, satisfaction, and enjoyment when He sees us in Christ!
We are becoming part of His glorious expression, for the enjoyment of Christ as grace will cause us to express Him with the saints! Praise the Lord!
God’s rich grace has accomplished redemption for us and has applied forgiveness to us (Eph. 1:7); His grace is rich and abounding (v. 8).
The riches of the grace of God have been caused to abound to us in all wisdom for God’s plan in eternity, and also in all prudence for God’s execution of His plan in time.
God’s abounding grace does everything in us and for us, and we have been put in the Beloved by God so that we may be the object of His grace.
The abounding grace of God accomplishes the heading up of all things in Christ (Eph.1:10), makes us an inheritance to God (v. 11) and qualifies us to inherit all that God is (v. 14).
All we can say is Praise the Lord for His grace!
We were sinners and enemies of God, but God came in Christ and reached us as the Spirit to bring us into His home, His house, and He made us the object of His grace by putting us in the beloved.
Now in this One, in Christ, He does everything in us and for us, and all we have to do is remain in Him and enjoy His grace.
We praise You, God and Father, for gracing us in the Beloved! Now You are our Father and His Father, our God and His God! We are in Christ and we enjoy the shining of Your face, we know Your love and glory, and we can enjoy You! Amen, Lord Jesus, keep us abiding in You so that we may enjoy all Your riches and become Your expression! May we be those who enjoy the rich grace of God, even the abounding grace of God, until we become to the praise of the riches of His grace! Amen, Lord, gain Your corporate expression in and through the church where all the saints enjoy the Triune God as grace! May we be those who enjoy God every day in Christ and by the Spirit so that we may be part of the corporate expression of God in glory to the praise of the glory of His grace! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 333, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Grace of God in the Economy of God (2022 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 1, entitled, The Tremendous Significance of the Grace of God as Revealed in the New Testament.
- Hymns on this topic:
– His Father and our Father, / His God and ours Thou art; / And He is Thy Beloved, / The gladness of Thy heart. / We’re His, in joy He brings us / To share His part and place, / To know Thy love and favor, / The shining of Thy face. (Hymns #48)
– We praise Thee, glorious Father, / As objects of Thy grace, / Who for Thine own heart’s pleasure / Are now before Thy face: / Thy sons marked out for glory / Known from eternity / With Christ Thy Well-beloved, / Object supreme to Thee. (Hymns #36)
– Chosen in Him Thy well-beloved Son, / We have our part in joy before Thy face; / Predestined, ere this world had yet begun, / For that blest world, where all bespeaks Thy grace. / Sons loved and loving, whom Thy Spirit fills, / Our endless portion Christ in us to be; / Each with some trait of Him whose love us thrills, / For Thy delight and joy eternally. (Hymns #53)
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